"Mamma takes great pains with us," observed Mary; "but I should not like to die. How is it?" she added, turning to Mrs. Halliburton. "Jane is not much older than I, and yet she does not dread it!"
"My dear," was the reply, "I think it is simply this. Those whom God is intending to take from the world, He often, in His mercy and wisdom, weans from the love of it. You are healthy and strong, and the world is pleasant to you. Jane has been so long weak and ill that she no longer finds enjoyment in it; and this naturally causes her to look beyond this world to the rest and peace of the next. All things are well ordered."
Mary Ashley began to think they must be. Chattering Anna, vain Anna, sat gazing at Mary's pretty hat, her drooping curls; none, except Anna herself, knew with what envious longing. Anna, at any rate, was not tired of the world.
The end grew nearer and nearer. There came a day when Jane did not get up; there came a second, and a third. On the fourth morning, Janey, who had passed a comfortable night, compared with some nights which had preceded it, was sitting up in bed when her brothers came in from school. They hurried over their breakfast and ran up to her, carrying the remains of it in their hands.
The first few minutes after breakfast had always been devoted by Jane to reading to her children; in spite of her necessity for close working they were so devoted still. "I will read here this morning," she observed, as the boys stood around the bed.
"Mamma," interrupted Janey, "read about the holy city, in the Book of Revelation."
Mrs. Halliburton turned to the twenty-first chapter, and had read to the twenty-third verse—"And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof"—when Jane suddenly started forward in bed, her eyes fixed on some opposite point. Mrs. Halliburton paused, and endeavoured to put her gently back again.
"Oh, mamma, don't keep me!" she said in a strangely thrilling tone; "don't keep me! I see the light! I see papa!"
There was a strange light, not as of earth, in her own face, an ineffable smile on her lip, that told more of heaven. Her arms dropped; and she sank back on the pillow. Jane Halliburton had gone to her Heavenly Father; it may be also to her earthly one. Gar screamed.
Dobbs arrived in the midst of the commotion. And when Dobbs saw what had happened, she fell into a storm of anger, of passionate sobs, half ready to knock down Mrs. Halliburton with words, and the poor boys with blows. Why was she not called to see the last of her? The only young thing she had cared for in all the world, and yet she could not be allowed to wish her farewell! She'd never love another again as long as her days lasted! In vain they strove to explain to her that it was sudden, unexpected, momentary: Dobbs would not listen.